51N -114W Hummingbird

Triple_T99October 1, 2013

Should I take feeder down? As title says, I am in Crossfield, Alberta and have a lone hummingbird that has hung around the feeder for the last 10 days. Nights are getting down to -2C to -5C and all the plants are dying.
It has drank just over 5oz. of nectar last week.
I am worried that it may not survive the long journey south.

Triple_T99, please don't take the feeder down til you haven't seen him for at least a week, or even more. He really needs the extra to fatten up for the trip south. You can help him by increasing the sugar content from 4:1 to 2:1.

The books all say that feeders do not stop them from migrating when they are ready. He was probably born a second breeding, bottom of toten pole for food, and trying to catch up now that the competition is gone.

Years prior I only noticed them passing through approx the last week of August thru to mid September. 2012 I started to see them the first week of August, but none after mid September.

This year I saw my first in the last week of July, and then I made a note of September 9th being the last day. Nope, saw another one on September 23rd. So marked that down. Nope, now it's the 2nd of October.

I am located approx one hour's drive north of the Montana border. I gave up on feeders, since I never noticed a bird on them compared to the plants. They've favoured the Agastache Acapulco Salmon and Pink, Lobelia Cardinalis, and my cardinal vine. One year one bird was obsessed with my purple coneflower, this year the plant came down with yellow asters so it was removed.

Am glad I'd left the borage out for the bees.

We had a -6 overnight temperature, I'm sure there is nothing left in my yard for your fella, sure hope he makes it.

How cool! Nice pics too. There are still a ton of them around here, but the fighting has almost ceased to exist. The ants are back too. Interesting that they weren't a problem for a while, then suddenly the feeders are all covered with them again.

It's still feeding here today!
I let the birding society in Calgary see the pictures and they think it might be a young Anna's. It disappeared yesterday for about 4 hours. Saw it again at sunset and it fed for about 4 minutes. Boy was it hungry!
And it looks like we might get no freezing for the next 3 nights. Yay!

Off topic...

Yesterday a Blue Jay startled the finches feeding. One of the house finches knocked itself out against a window while fleeing. The blue jay then proceeded to try and eat the finch. Needless to say, I went onto the deck and scared the blue jay away, picked up the finch and kept it safe until it revived.
I have a picture through the window (not very good one though) of the blue Jay over the finch.